THE staggering success of East Lancashire's benefit fraud hotline is leading to the concept being adopted nationwide.

More than 400 people rang up to report social security cheats in the first month after the hotline was set up in October.

The special telephone line for the Blackburn/Burnley social security area was one of five set up throughout Britain. The others were in Stockport, Tunbridge Wells, Hull and Barrow in Furness.

In the three months from November to the end of January, overall the hotline has saved £800,000 on the social security bill by catching benefits cheats.

There have been 750 prosecutions set in motion as a result and 300 successful prosecutions.

The total cost of running the hotlines and setting them up is £20,000.

In an exclusive interview with the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, Social Security Minister Oliver Heald revealed that the success of the Burnley and Blackburn hotline was behind a series of special "spotlight on benefits cheats" campaigns which have been set up. Three were launched last month in London. And today the first project in Scotland goes ahead with a crackdown in Edinburgh. All involve the setting up of a hotline on the lines of the one in East Lancashire and after the immediate spotlight campaign is over the hotlines will stay.

Mr Heald told the Evening Telegraph: "We have had a very very good response. The East Lancashire hotline has been a great success. We have had hundreds of callers.

"We were very impressed indeed by the response and that is what is behind the new spotlight campaigns.

"The East Lancashire hotline has led the way and the idea is being adopted nationwide.

"What happens is that people who are on benefit or people who are on modest incomes ring us up and tell us about benefit fraud.

"These are people who are struggling to make ends meet and they see other people ripping us off."

Mr Heald hopes the use of the confidential hotlines, so that people can inform on people they know are cheating on benefit, could make a huge dent in the £3 billion a year that social security benefit fraud is estimated to cost.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.